I like music man. That's why I like to go to the airport early, you know. I always
play great music. I always have unbelievable sound systems. You get there early.
You take advantage of that. You just jammed with the best music known to man.
Occasionally there's an announcement, but other than that, you're just getting
into the music, you know. Yesterday, all my, with the gentleman who left a
briefcase at the Security Area of Concourse C, please return to claim your
briefcase. And it seems like all unattended vehicles will be towed away at the
owner's expense. Oh, I believe there's been a gate change for Flight 207. It'll now
be departing out of gate 19. Yesterday, I love that song. It takes my mind off
traveling.
The street, inside your head, won't ever be in the beats of life. Deep inside. The
pressure's high. Just to stay alive. There's a heat as long as it's hot.
Get 708 at WRGN Radio. I'm Don Rosen. Thanks for joining us here on this Thursday
morning. Gorgeous morning. Clear sky. We're in the about 36 degrees. Sun is up. What a
great day to be alive. It's 708. And this is WRGN Historical Marker number five.
And a brief rundown of why I do these is because I was at a friend's funeral. And there
was not. After 30 years in radio, no voice air checks of this man. In other words, there
was nothing to prove he was ever on the radio in 30 years. And I said, I'm not going to
let that happen with WRGN. So I'm trying to get all the people that are still alive.
We're starting with the oldest people first because those are the people. Well, I went
with Tony Gazano, our owner was the first guy on there. And I told him that I said, I'm
going with the oldest people first because I can't count on you being around, you know,
in years. And he said, well, I'm glad you appreciate me. Anyway, so we're at number five
with Pete for and. And you were afternoon host here for what years do you remember?
Yes, I do remember. Hello there. And thank you for inviting me. Yeah, this is fun.
It's it's it's it's really it's like stepping into the twilight zone, isn't it?
Yeah, basically, yeah, it seems it seems long ago and far away. Yeah, it was from 2005 to 2011.
So the last time you were in this building was. The last time I was in this building was much
more recently because Racine County had its open day. And WRGN was a participant in that. And
it was shortly after the place was sold from a bliss to Magnum. And, you know, the carcass
was still here and so forth. So I bet that's when I was in the building. So I saw some of the
changes, but it's been at least six years now, maybe five, six years. Yeah, when I came in
after nine years, it was like, I it was like an out of body experience because you know,
you know, I was here for 24 years. Then it was gone for nine. And now I was here before that
because I used to meet with Luturner. We went out to lunch and I used to pick them up here and
stuff. And but still, I mean, it was it's kind of a freaky thing to go back when you've been
gone so long. And so Pete Farand was here did afternoon drive. We called it on WRGN radio.
And let's go back to a little bit before that. Where are you from? I am originally from New York City.
New York City or a Manhattan Bronx Brooklyn Queen Staten Island. I was just going to say that.
Was born in Queens the first 12 years of my life spent in Manhattan. And then we move to the
South Bronx. So depending on whom I'm talking to, I can say I'm from Manhattan or yeah,
from the South Bronx. I was born in Manhattan lived in the Bronx, but mainly grew up on Long
Island. Yeah. My dad said we're getting that out of here. Yeah. Usually a wise choice and a lot
of a lot of people, a lot of people did. Little did he know the house he bought in Master Peak
would be 10 blocks from the Gilgo Beach Killer, a serial killer. He lived 10 blocks from us.
And then you had the Mary Joe, but a Foucault shooting. Oh, yes, of course, which was also in our
town of Massapigua. Yes. We had Carlo Gambino, the godfather for Massapigua. Massapigua is a big
is a big place really geographically. Yeah. It covers, it covers a lot of area. My dad worked in
New Heights, Lake Success, New Heights Park area for many, many years. Queens on the North.
Well, on the North, not sure. Yeah. So I was much more, much more into the North.
Sure. Now, people are confused that Queens and Brooklyn are physically on Long Island.
Yes. And they're counties officially. Right. But they're not, when you say Long Island,
you think of NASA and Suffolk County, which are the more uncity-like areas, but yeah,
they're physically on Long Island. I hate when people say, we're from Long Island. Well, Long Island,
NASA and Suffolk County are 103 miles long. Could you like narrow it down a little bit?
I'm from Long Island. Yeah. Right. They're like 80 towns on Long Island, which, which one
are you from? Okay. So you're boarding Queens. Yeah. Only a couple of miles away from where
Don Donald Trump was born. Yes. I know that. Yeah. My dad used to work with his father on certain
projects. Yeah. Okay. So when did you get the radio bug? Oh gosh. That was about probably six or
seven or eight or something like that. Yeah. Most people in the war, yeah. Most people were,
and most people in a lot of jobs, I had a doctor and I mentioned this in some context to the doctor.
He says, yeah, I know I wanted to be a doctor when I was nine years old. So there are a lot of
jobs. A lot of people who have jobs who have this calling and radio is one of the jobs you have,
you have to have a calling for because otherwise you can't put up with it. Yeah. The kids who were
doctors said, yeah, I was playing doctor. Yeah. I never was a kid. When I was nine years old,
we take off the clothes and I play doctor on them. Exactly. Yeah. But in radio, we all had
basement radio stations. Yeah. I, I, well, I had an amateur radio station. Yeah. You were the
amateur radio station. Yeah. You were the amateur radio station. Yeah. I didn't never get into that.
I went to Lafayette electronics. We all did. Yeah. Bigger electronics store along on them. They had
everything. They were like the best buy of their day, but super best buy. Well, yeah. They also
had a lot of parts built stuff with, and they weren't say, I said, well, they're big stores in
the North Shore. Yeah. They had one in Queens. I don't remember Queens Boulevard areas. The
one in South. It was a big one. So, well, that was the headquarters. Yeah. And I bought a radio
transmitter, a little radio transmitter. And I hooked it up to my real to real recorder when
I automatic reversing one. I had a 24 hour a day radio station before that had a RIMCO caravill
radio. Oh, yeah. When I was about eight or nine years old. They'll show up occasionally anyway.
I got one. Yeah. My son got me one. He was a mint condition. Very good. Okay. So you got the
radio bug. And when did you get on professional radio? On professional radio at age 17 at WHN.
Now it's used to be a huge radio station. Huge. Yeah. It was not well respected in the radio
market. Because they were like number nine or number 10 in the market. Not number one or
number two. But it was New York City. But it was still 50,000 watt New York City radio station.
That was a summer engineer. They called it at the time. Summer relief engineer. And I did the
overnight shift, which is what I like doing. That's when I would pick. And it was it was a lot of fun.
And I got to meet all these people and see how it worked. And said, my major market isn't all
that great. The pay was good. But you know what? And a lot of radio people realize that they fight
to get to the major market. And I get there. They realize it's the same as the smaller market,
but with higher wattage. And that's about it. No. Actually, I would disagree with that.
It's more of a competition and more backbiting. And more just general. Yeah. Just general
negativity and so forth. I in the major market stations that I've worked for, which include
over the years, the WHOH and WHDH in Boston. A station is called. I just can't recall now
East Providence, Rhode Island. There's a lot of this backbiting going on and a lot of negativity.
It's just it's not really. I was very lucky. I had backbiting at every station. I worked there.
Yeah, right. So WHOH and you were an engineer. Yeah. I was well, they called it an engineer
because of union requirements. But it was actually bored up. What we what we and I today would call
a boredop. What I'm doing. Yeah, it's well, what you're doing used to be called combo
in the business because you're both on the air and running the equipment. What I was doing,
I was sitting in a room with a console just like you have. Well, anyway, this RCA console,
and then there was an announcer in an adjacent room and we looked at each other through the glass.
Some big names came from there now. When you were there, they were probably what they call
middle of the road music. Absolutely. The lady became country and became a huge powerhouse in
New York City. It absolutely did. And then it turned the sports in religion and went down
whatever. It's no longer it no longer exists in any state. Yeah. But so where'd you go from there?
And and HN was on 400 Park Avenue, by the way, next to the Leeward Brothers building,
which is famous for architectural reasons. I would look out the window and yeah.
And and and see this amazing building on that's why it was taking the subway at you know,
close to midnight on which which was it, which was a trip and a half also because I would commute
with by subway. So we'd go from there. We went from there to Mount Kisco. Yeah, Mount Kisco is
just outside Manhattan. Yeah, it's about 30 miles north of the city and I would commute by
pincentral. The late lamented pincentral real road. W-I-P? No, the other one. Yeah, and that's
gone away too, I think. W-R-N-W-S-Colators. And we have a W-R-N-W now, I think, or did recently.
In Milwaukee. Yeah. 97 FM. They've they've they've picked up the colliders. But that station later on
moved from Mount Kisco to spring valley. No. No. It moved south to I can't take of it right now.
It's it's you know, you know, at our at our age, the pressure of come thinking sometimes and
coming up with words sometimes disappears. It went to a place that a bridecliffe,
a bridecliffe man and Howard Stern worked there. That was his first commercial station.
Right, a bridecliffe man. Right Howard Stern talks about that all the time how he got started.
He played in the air check. Oh really? Some from there. He was awful. He was just terrible.
I mean, you know, I list the air checks of myself and my first radio jet. And they're awful.
Yeah. You always say, how was I employed at this? Yeah. Why did they?
Well, what what cocaine by was he on when he hired me? Pete Ferrand is here. It's WRJN.
Historical marker number five. We'll talk about his years here at WRJN coming up.
Shirley, first we got to work her way here because we plucked this guy out of New England.
Well, we found him. That's coming up at just a moment. Seven, eighteen, make it seven,
nineteen and now WRJN radio. Clodney to the name of the hundred forty three.
Mostly clear right now. Thirty-six degrees.
The game and night leave for your behind. Shout to run the round.
Nobody knew where to find him. No way they didn't twist my hand.
I'm never going by. But I'm quiet. And I believe him.
Way ever meant to do anything wrong. It's going to get worse. It's been way too long.
We can't let you lose my number.
Because you're not anywhere that I can't find you.
I love you. I believe you lose my number.
Because you're not anywhere that I can't find you.
It's seven twenty one. Historical marker number five. Pete Ferrand is here.
And we're talking about his career and how he wound up at WRJN radio.
Okay, so you wound up upstate New York and not upstate but just north of Manhattan in
Bryant Cliff Manor and Mount Kiscoe. Eventually you get to New England somehow.
I bet. Yeah, I was working in Utica, New York for a traditional station much like this was
when I started WIBX, which is still around and still doing news talk on 950 out of Utica.
Had had numerous management and ownership changes over the years, obviously.
Because we're talking about 50 years ago. More than that.
Yeah, about 50 years ago. And in fact, the station was it's only for the state.
That station was in the middle of its 50th anniversary.
So they had a big party and all that stuff is usual.
And that started to disintegrate. And I don't remember why.
But I wound up in New Hampshire taking a job in New Hampshire, doing afternoon drive in keen.
And thinking your life was over.
No, not really. It was basically about the same thing, another 5,000 watt radio station,
another 5,000 watt directional station. And what happened then?
Well, it's a long, long story here. I don't know if it's relevant to anything today.
But I got into a deal for, well, a station in New Hampshire lost its license due to numerous
improprieties that there's no need to go into now. It was just pretty not uncommon in radio.
No, not really. And I was formed a group. I formed a group to apply for that station
and apply for the license. And a long story short, nine years later, we got bought out
because the principles that we had a competitive application for had changed.
The FCC changed what they were looking for and what was desirable.
So I did wind up in Nashua and basically switched careers for a number of years. I did
documentation consulting and of course development for the computer industry, which in the 1980s
was going great guns around Boston. So Nashua is basically a suburb of Boston if you want to
consider it that. So I had a bunch of jobs with not actual jobs, but contract assignments with
companies like Digital Equipment Corporation and Honeywell and Lotus and the whole data general
and a whole lot of other companies that no longer exist, which is most of those.
Yeah, somebody told me when I was first kind of the radio, we always went when I was a kid to
New Hampshire, Vermont main on vacation and summer vacations. I said, I want to work in New Hampshire.
I remember the guy at the radio station said, he will starve to death if you work in New Hampshire.
Because remember, I was coming from Long Island and he paid top dollar $1.85 an hour.
Yeah, right. So I got 215. Well, I later went to 250, but that's a whole story how I got
to that is. But they said you'll starve. So I did apply to New Hampshire, a station in mount
on mount was licensed to Mount Washington. W H O M was the name of the station.
The guy's name was Peter Thing and I get a call one day by mother's house. My mother said,
a Mr. Thing called you. From the Adam family, we're Mr. Thing. He said his name was Mr. Thing.
Call them up. His name was Peter Thing and he offered me a job to come to New Hampshire
and all going through my mind like the two little devil and angel on your shoulder.
You'll starve if you go. Don't take the job. It's nice. You'll starve if you go.
And so I didn't take it. But so you're already Marty on the mountain. So when did you want?
I got I got to finish that story though. W H O M had a TV station as well. And it was located
on top of Mount Washington and I would pass by it whenever I went five thousand feet up.
I don't know. Yeah, whatever the number is. It's the highest peak this side of the Mississippi
River in the Northeast. And they had a TV station as well as the FM station and he just died a
few years over this past year. They had an engineer because they they had to staff the transmitter
24-7 and they had and this one engineer who was told the first day that he got got to work
as a you're doing the weather. So the station had this gimmick of the engine one of the engineers
would do a weather forecast from the mountain. And his name was Marty something and so for like 24-28
years, Marty on the mountain was doing a weather forecast with absolutely no broadcast experience
on air. And he would say frequently, I'm not a meteorologist. I'm an engineer. Well,
they had to live up there in the winter. They had to live up there absolutely because there's no
way to get up or down. Right. In the winter time you you can drive your car up there in the summer.
Oh sure. We did a lot of people. A lot of people did. Every time I had visitors from out of
town we go up Mount Washington because that was a thing. It's a scary road to get up there.
It is. You can also take a cog railway, which is very expensive and very slow.
A cog train. But that's that's the other. But that station never really worked from Mount
Washington and it no longer is. The FM station covered most of New England. Somebody in 1950 thought
it was a great idea. But they couldn't sell advertising because a local gas station isn't going
to pay for the whole, you know, for three states of coverage. And you know, so they had a problem.
Jack, Jack Par on that station for a little while. Tonight you're Jack Par. Yeah. Okay. Yeah,
absolutely. Okay. So anyway, so I so after the finally I got finally this this radio station
project got ended and I was able to look for jobs. So I got a job. The perverse job was at
Manchester and then there was another another job in Peterborough simultaneously and then
another job and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I wound up in New London at a talk station
doing morning talk and that lasted for seven years. And then the boss found somebody who would work
for free. Son-in-law. No, not just son-in-law, but a guy who sold, sold time on the station
in return for work. So that's what he did. He replaced you with somebody who would work for free.
Yes. I've never been replaced by someone who would work. I've been replaced by people.
Relatives. I've had a work with me for but yeah. All right. We're talking to Pete for
random this morning and we're going to tell how we plucked them out of obscurity in New England.
And how we got here, which is kind of an interesting story. That's coming up here at WRGM
Radio and our historical marker number five today at 728 and there was something I had to say
and I don't forget what it was. Oh, tonight the State of the Union address is going to be held
and our own Stuart J. Wattles will be commenting on that after the State of the Union address.
So be listening for that here at WRGM, hometown radio refreshed, a civic media station.
Oh, yeah, Neil Diamond. It's 735 at WRGM Radio. It's our fifth.
WRGM historical marker. We're marking really history of WRGM Radio Pete for
Anderson here today. So you come to WRGM. We plucked you line of obscurity in New England.
You can't remember the radio station we got you from that. I remember it was it was
on 1400. It was somewhere around 1400. It was like this. 1420 actually. Now, how do we get you
you applied? Oh, yeah. There was an ad on the web on the internet. Internet of broadcasting magazine.
No, Internet of broadcasting magazine had already gone sort of sound marginal. Yeah, it's just
still around, but it was no longer the Bible. No, it was the late lamented all access web page.
Oh, yeah. They're around a little bit. Not a little bit, but they, but they don't do what they did.
Yeah. Okay. So what did we ask for? What were we asking in the ad for?
I, gosh, I don't remember exactly. It was a, it was a talk show, you know, talk show host.
And you say, gee, I've never been to the Midwest before in my life, which you probably hadn't been
of them. Well, yes, I have because my aunt and uncle live in Evanston, and I visited them.
But you never worked in the Midwest. No, I never worked in the Midwest, but I've been to the,
well, yeah, you traveled here. Travel traveled here. Yeah. Evanston, Indiana? No, Evansville. Oh,
Evansville, Illinois. I'm sorry. Evanston, now you got me because it's Evan'sville, Indiana,
but my aunt and uncle lived in Evanston, Illinois, just north. Yeah. Okay. So you keep the good
neighborhood. I think we did the interview with you over the phone. Not, oh, no, no, we did it
in person because I met you at the airport. Right. You did both. Actually, there was a phone
interview as they're normally. I remember we're sitting at the airport and we're watching the people
come through and we're seeing, we don't know what you look like. That's right. So we're seeing
these weird people. I said, oh, I hope that's not bad. Oh, gee, please God, don't let that be him.
Please don't, we're seeing these like really strange human beings walk through. And finally,
you walk through and we meet you. After, after, after a run on Midwest Express. Yes. What a great
airline. Yeah. That was it. That's the close them down. That was a place. That was in April
of 2005. So you come here and we hire you afternoon drive, which was like what two or three six
o'clock or something like that. It changed a couple of times. Okay. We hired you for a talk show.
Mike, Mike Gallagher was the was my predecessor. Do you remember Mike? Yeah, I remember that.
No, at that at that at that previous at that previous station, I had been running with Mike
Gallagher because we also had Mike Gallagher. And one of our regular listeners had told Mike
Gallagher on the air that I had said something abhorrent in some mysterious way. And so they got Mike
Gallagher to call me on the air on his air at the station and answer for my transgression. Whatever
I, whatever political point I made, I don't know. Well, it turned out, of course, that the regular
listener had gotten things mixed up. And in fact, I agreed with him on whatever that point was.
But he asked me a bunch of other questions on politics. And one of the questions stays in my mind
for the 20 years now. And he said, do you like the war that the Iraqi war was going on at that point?
I said, do you like the war? Usually I could come up with an answer. But I couldn't come up with an
answer to that because that's like, do I like the war? No, I don't, I love wars. Yes, kill, kill, kill.
What from Elsa's restaurant? You know, what was going on? So that was the, that was my Mike Gallagher
moment. Yeah, he badmouthed me on the radio because somebody called him and said, well,
the same thing. Don Rosen on sound off is just raking you over the calls. And he got on to just
badmouth me. And he badmouthed me for working at a local small station, which we used him as an
if he was, he was, we were one of his affiliates. Right. And he's badmouthing one of the affiliates
on the air. What if I happen to my Gallagher? I have no idea. Now, I remember I felt terrible
because his wife passed away from cancer. Okay. And I felt terrible. And I, I had been
presented by notes saying my condolences. I felt terrible. But I don't know what happened. He's
kind of vanished. He was a, he was one of the right wingers on one of many, one of, one of, one of many.
Yeah. So he vanished. So you did after the drive here for an, and you, that's only shift you
ever did here, right? Other than fill in, I mean, if, uh, if our morning guy, uh, took off,
or if you, or if you took off, I filled in for you sometimes. Yeah. Or, you know, if somebody got
arrested and has been jailed over, incarcerated, there's always an issue. Until we came up with bail,
I was always good. By the way, don't laugh. That happened here. One of our employees here was
arrested. And we had to go down and bail her out. And, uh, we went, I went down with our general
manager at the time was Tim Edas. Oh, yeah. We were at a Christmas party. And we had to go bail
her out of jail. And then she had an ankle bracelet on when she worked here. Golly. And I said,
this, but she was very good at what she did. She was a telemarketer for us. Okay. But she,
you know, couldn't keep herself out of jail. It wasn't other than that. It was just violating
things that she shouldn't have, like, uh, showing up at somebody's house and stuff like that. Yeah,
I mean, it was not really really minor. It wasn't, it wasn't drugs randomly. Yeah. Okay. So,
you're here at WRJ. And what are some of the highlights of your career? Well, I've had,
there were a lot of it. This was about the best job I've ever had really, uh, on the air, uh,
because we were doing, we were doing actual radio, uh, as opposed to, uh, marginal,
marginal radio, which some of my other jobs were about. And we were actually making a point
and actually having useful and interesting guests. Now, one thing that happened, I was going to
jump ahead, uh, since I left the station, what I've been doing is voice work, uh, as a voice act,
you're doing audio books and things of that nature. And just about three weeks ago, um,
I had an audio book that I got to do. And it was the here to four undiscovered works of
Lysander Spooner. Lysander Spooner was a Massachusetts lawyer and abolitionist to died in 1875.
And I needed to find out who it, who it was I was actually working with because obviously it wasn't
him. So, uh, I googled the guy's name when I found it from the, uh, from the webpage that I, uh,
was working with. And I found that this guy that I was working with now had written an article
about Yuri Maltsev, okay, about in 2011. And I said, Yuri Maltsev, Gully G, he was one of my favorite
guests. Yuri Maltsev was an economist who worked for Mikhail Gorbachev in setting up the economy
of Russia after the Soviet Union broke up. He later escaped wound up at Carthage as a professor.
And I found him there. And he was here several times on the, on the air talking politics.
And so I wrote to my new client, uh, with the audio book. And I said, I know Yuri Maltsev,
he was a regular guest, et cetera. And the guy said, that's, that's utterly amazing. I never
met him, but I've listened to everyone of his lectures that are on, you know, on, on, on
YouTube or whatever it was. So I said, okay, that's an interesting context. Now Yuri, unfortunately,
died last year. So, uh, but he was here on WRJ. Was he ever in the building? Oh, yeah, yeah. He
would always come into the building. Oh, wow. Yeah. He was a lot, a lot of people, a lot of people
did. And that was, I was my preference if people were willing to, uh, to show up. We had a couple
other professors from, from Carthage as well, uh, show up. Um, we had a number of interesting
guests. I had judged Napolitano. I don't know. He had a book. Oh, yeah. The, uh, the new jersey.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. That's a good guest to have, Judge Napolitano. He was a big fox guy,
fox news guy. Later on. Yeah. Yeah. Um, we had a number of, of, of guests. Of course, we had every,
you know, every politician that came through here from time to time on, on, on, on, I know you had
Paul Ryan on the air. Oh, yes. I had numerous times. And I'll tell you what, this is one day he
was willing to come on with you. And he was sitting in our lobby on that very same couch we have
there now. He was on the other side of he's sitting there. And I was still working late. And I came
out, I said, Congressman Ryan, and he always wanted to be called Paul. Don't call me Congressman Ryan.
But I did it. And I was sitting on the couch talking to him one on one. Little did I know he'd be
Speaker of the house. Yes. One of the most reluctantly, reluctantly. Right. One of the most powerful men
in this country, Speaker of the house. And here I am sitting on the, he's sitting on the couch
and I'm just sitting on a chair across from just shooting the breeze with Paul Ryan. And he was
willing to come on the air with you at the time. Now, one of the things about Paul Ryan. And I know
you don't want to do too much and get too much into politics. But I asked Paul Ryan a question that
I was really hoping he would answer to have a good answer for because he's a bright guy and obviously
a successful guy and so forth. And I said, you know, when I was a kid growing up, my parents would say
there were Republicans, the further rich and the Democrats are for the poor and the working class
and so forth. And I said, this image persists to this day. Why is that? And, you know, shouldn't you
change that in order to get more support? And he didn't have an answer to that. And I was very
disappointed because I wanted to hear a good answer to that. I would love to talk to politicians
to get an answer to anything. Anything. Well, kind of, they kind of rope a dope you and they,
you know, get around it, but they don't come out for the point. They answer other questions. You
ask them a question and they give you an answer to a different question. You didn't ask. Exactly.
Yeah. And so, yeah, that's going around a lot lately. So we have that. What are the good
guests? Do you have? Mainly you did a lot of just picking up the phones and talking to you.
picking up the phones. But actually is more fun because it's more unpredictable and we give
a voice, but you have your regulars too. We have, we give a voice to people who have something to
say that are not routine because politicians, you know, they're going to promote themselves. And
so is everybody else who's coming on the air. But random people from the phone, who knows what
they're going to say? And that was, that was the exciting part. I don't, I, I prefer radio the way
we did it without screeners and all that other production stuff that goes in. You know what was,
who was a good, who was a great guest. And I had him on occasionally with Tom Carco and our
news director because we had now most people who have been listening. I'm sure remember Gary Becker
and the mayor who I remember that morning did not end it. It did not end well. Now he was arrested
for attempted child soliciting. So listening, so listening, attempted, right. And Tom had gone down
to City Hall and police department and all that. And so I asked him to join me in the talk studio.
And so he spent an hour or so talking because he had, you know, all these personal contacts.
And in a five minute newscast, he's just going to say what happened in the very excellent way that
he always did, but it's only a couple of minutes could, could, could he devote to that? So we had
the whole hour and I got his personal impression of what happened there. And in, in suing years,
he was able to come into the studio occasionally. Like I said, it wasn't a regular thing, but when
there was a big story developing, he would spend time with me and we would talk about the details
from his point of view. And I thought that was wonderful. We did that on sound up to after his newscast.
Then we get into the stories a little, a little more. He was my first guest I had here when I came
back. He is the station historian. Yes. There isn't anything about the history of the station that he
doesn't know as a matter of fact, some of the people who are going to come in and do the historical
marker, I'm not familiar with. I know their names, but I didn't work with them. So Tom is going to
have to come in and sit here with me and talk to them. You know, you can interview people, but I
rather have somebody who can say, do you remember with a time you did, I won't remember that time
because they were before me. But Tom is the station historian and is so great to have him as a
reference to everything. He is a treasure to this radio station's history. So yeah. So he was my
first guest. So that's so that's so that stands out. And we had some topics that stand out. We had
the Kenosha Racine Milwaukee train project. You remember that? Which is still going on. Which is
still going on. And which, you know, mayor was talking about it. Yeah. K. R. M. K. R. M.
And I remain convinced that my original point of view was correct, which I usually am because I
don't change my mind very often. But I keep saying, if this is going to work, why don't they just set up
a bus service to run this route? And then if it's successful and people are filling up to the point
that we can't get enough buses, then we can talk about a train. It's costs one tenth of the price
is more flexible. And we'll see if anybody actually rides it. But, you know, trains are sexier.
They're still working on it. And when the mayor was in here, I said that they were working that
when I moved to Wisconsin in 1980. They was talking about that train thing. And he said,
he said something. And I can't remember his phrase. Something like certain things, you know,
good ideas never die or something like that. It was something like that phrase.
Spensive ideas never die. Yeah, whatever. All right, we're talking to Pete Ferrand. It's our
WRJN Historical Marker number five. And coming up, I'm going to find out why did Pete Ferrand leave
this paradise of radio? That's going to come up. And what he's doing today as well. So that's
straight ahead here, WRJN, hometown radio refreshed. We're at 1400 AM, 99.9 FM and 98.1 FM.
So we're going to find out why did Pete Ferrand leave this paradise of radio refreshed.
I'm walking his rhythm singing my song.
Thinking about my baby, trying to get home.
Walking his rhythm, moving in sound.
I'm into the music, trying to move on.
It's been so long since I've seen it. It's 751 at WRJN radio. I'm Don Rose and talking to Pete
Ferrand that are historical marker number five. Hello. Okay, so, okay, so you're very successful.
You're very happy here. You hear for a number of years at WRJN. And you decided to leave.
Now we didn't fire you. No. You left on your own accord. Why wasn't it? Well, you changed the format.
I don't know how much you want to get into this. What to music? No, not to music. What do we do?
Why don't you go to an all news format? Or at least so you told me that never actually happened
as far as I know. But that's what you told me. How must I lie to you? Because I don't think we
have went through an old issue. I mean, I don't want to get into a argument over this. But
went to an all news format without the local talk. And or at least that's that's what I told
I said, no, I can't really do that. I'm not a newsman. Don't make me a newsman. It's been
tried before and it hasn't worked. And so I said, I can't, I can't work and be very lovely
and talented. Teddy Elan took over. Well, we never went to an all news format. I know that.
But what? But that's what that's what that's what you told me you wanted. I didn't I don't
know we want to get into this. Maybe more news oriented in we were always news oriented. I
don't know. So you decided to leave here. And this is this is your last radio job, right? Yes,
this is the last radio job. Okay. So we did got tired of the whole. Anybody who follows radio
knows that radio has changed dramatically. And there wasn't much left that appealing and then
I didn't really want to move again and do all that. Now, we did have a really interesting job
offer from a not a radio station, but a TV station in Delaware, a place that I have been to
very, very very briefly know nothing about really. But what they wanted me to do and they were
ready to fly me out and everything. They wanted this was a Fox Fox affiliate. They wanted to do a
morning radio type talk show on TV. And it would be from like six to nine or six to eight or something
like that. And with guests, you know, phone, phone calls and that kind of stuff. And that's what they
wanted. And well, Don, I missed it that for a while on TV. Yeah. I was already on MSNBC. That's
what he was the morning guy. Yeah. Absolutely. Maybe that's what they were looking for. I don't know.
But I just I didn't want to really feel like moving to Delaware. And the way they had structured
that job, it looked like it would be 140 hours of work a week, a week, you know, it just
like most radio jobs. Yeah, like exactly. Like most non-union small conversations or radio stations.
So I said, and not really. So what else what else can I do? And I went into being a voice actor
and primarily audio books, but also commercials. And that's what I continue to do now years, years
later, I've done over 150 audio books. Do we know any of the titles? I doubt it. But you can look
it up on audible.com with my, you know, SP grant. You know, it's funny because I used to do some
industrial audio for videos. And people said, well, can I hear them? I said, well, what is for
case tractors and their new case tractor, which is automated, unless you plan on buying a tractor,
you'll probably won't hear the demo. But it was those type of things that nobody would ever hear
unless you're buying a tractor. Well, a lot of a lot of what I'm what I've done has been on you.
And for instance, I did a promotion for a garbally publishing. Garbally publishing, it's spelled
like you think, garbled, you know. And what they what they are publishing is historical stuff
relating to railroads. It's a small publisher in in Pennsylvania. But if you go and look up
garbally publishing on YouTube, you will find my voice in an old announcer style with a,
excuse me, with a very, very nicely done video about what the company does.
I did one for, this is back in my early days in radio. I did one for how to play back Hammond.
Wow. And it was for a VHS video. And I was in the store one day. And I found it. And I bought
the video. And sure enough, it looked and sounded great. And there was another one for a band
orchestra. They were, for their video, they did a little thing about the band. And I now
rated it. And I said, actually, it wasn't, it sounded bad when you do it because you're sitting
in the studio with no visuals, just a script. Yeah. And they put it together with the visuals. It
wasn't bad. I still have it. It's on VHS cassette. I mean, you just have to get a VHS player.
And I'm, I've never learned how to play backgammon. So my wife and I played all the time.
Okay. Yeah. Well, I love backgammon. I beat her every time. I feel bad when I beat her too,
because she, she takes it so well. But, you know, it's, I don't think she plays well. Anyway.
Anyway, so, so now you're still doing the audio books. I'm doing our, audio books. Which is great
because you get it from home, right? Absolutely. It's all done from home. I mean, it would be nice.
It'd be nice to go down to a nice expensive studio in Chicago with that director and then engineer
just like they did 30 years ago. But that hasn't happened. And it's not something I really am
pushing for. I think Mark Studio and Milwaukee only once I went to a professional studio outside
a radio station. Yeah. To record a commercial. And I didn't like the experience. Because when you're
doing it by yourself, you can do it. Oh, I would do it again. Again, again, again. But when you're
dealing with these guys, all right, we like that take. We're going to take it. But I didn't like it.
Well, I don't care what you like. Right. Exactly. What you like is unimportant to me. It was for
we energies. I did. We're actually Wisconsin electric. It was before we energies. So this is
great talking to you. Do you ever think we'd be back together again on the radio in this radio
station? You never tell. Right. And that's it. You can never tell. I when I walked back in here
again and started November 1st, Tom Carco and Jan, Jan and half Jan Carco was in here. And I
said, did you ever think we'd be sitting together in a studio on this radio station again?
And they both said no, but it's good seeing you again. You look great. You sound your voice sounds
and just as you did when you were here, it hasn't changed. I had to be Bob Barry recently.
He was the king of radio in Milwaukee back in the 60s. He interviewed the Beatles on the air,
the Rolling Stones. His voice sounds the same as he did when he was back in the 60s. I couldn't
believe it. You know, if you take care of your voice, you don't smoke and drink, you know, you'll
sound good. It's so good seeing you friend. I love you. I love you friend. Thank you very much.
Historical marker number five. Who's going to be number six? Yeah, to keep listening for that.
I won't you'll tell you. I'm Don Rosen. We'll do it again tomorrow morning 6 a.m. Right
and early here. W. R.J. on hometown radio refreshed. A civic media station at 1,400 a.m. 99.9 FM
in Racine 98.1 FM in Kenosha.